Category Archives: Author advice

I’m pleased to announce that none other than the fabulous Graham Joyce will be coming to visit the Story Cafe on Tuesday September 30th. This event is part of Leicester’s Everybody’s Reading festival, and will run from 10.00am to 12.00pm at Beaumont Leys Library.

You can’t beat learning at first hand about the craft of writing and the habits of the successful writer. Who better to impart these jewels of wisdom than local writer Graham? The prolific author of more than twenty novels has won many prizes and knows more than a thing or two about how to tell a good story and what it takes to succeed as a writer. The Story Café will throw open its doors to the public for this session, an unmissable opportunity for all would-be writers.

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Thanks to the twitter sphere I came across this today. Inspiring stuff, I thought. I like what Zadie says about writing as a way of clarifying; I can relate to that. I like the idea that everyone is a world, too, and envy her ‘ease and fluidity’. Maybe we all need to root out some children’s books and get reading!

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In 2001 The New York Time’s published Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing that keep him focussed. Nearly a decade later, in early 2010, The Guardian invited a handful of contemporary authors to offer their own take on this approach:

Some of the rules are helpful, some are very subjective, and some are just plain silly (Who’d’ve thought it eh? Writers – pah!). They are all interesting though, and Neil Gaiman’s are particularly helpful…

1.Write
2.Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3.Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4.Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
5.Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
6.Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7.Laugh at your own jokes.
8.The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.